www.esd.ornl.gov/nercEUROPE > 7,000-5,000 14C y.a. Warmer-than-present climates allowed forest to spread further north. At about 6,000bc, rising Mediterranean sea waters broke through the Bosphorous. In perhaps less than a year, the Black Sea became brackish and rose several hundred feet, inundating former shores and river valleys deep into the interior. The waters would have encroached on the land at a rate of about 1 km a day. More than 60,000 square miles of land were soon submerged, a 30 percent expansion in the Black Sea’s size, which essentially gave the body of water its modern configuration. Climate changes in Europe/Near East during the last 15,000 calendar years (note that these dates are in ‘real’ years not radiocarbon years).

12,800 y.a. (+/- 200 years)- rapid stepwise onset of the intensely cold Younger Dryas. Much drier than present over much of Europe and the Middle East, though wetter-than-present conditions at first prevailed in NW Europe.

After last Ice Age Europe only small human pockets resisted, Europe was recolonized with I2 populations from the Lower Danube Area. Land bridges: Black Sea was a lake, Crete, Greek Islands, Sicily and British Islands were part of mainland.Than E black populations came to Balkans from Africa, followed by J2/G farmers from Middle Asia. Thus I2+E+J2/G formed the Old Europe substratum, that was ‘fecundated’ after 4000bc by R1b+R1a ‘aryans’.

eupedia – R1b – Neolithic cattle herders> It has been hypothetised that R1b people (perhaps alongside neighbouring J2 tribes) were the first to domesticate cattle in northern Mesopotamia some 10,500 years ago. R1b tribes descended from mammoth hunters, and when mammoths went extinct, they started hunting other large game such as bisons and aurochs. With the increase of the human population in the Fertile Crescent from the beginning of the Neolithic (starting 12,000 years ago), selective hunting and culling of herds started replacing indiscriminate killing of wild animals. The increased involvement of humans in the life of aurochs, wild boars and goats led to their progressive taming. Cattle herders probably maintained a nomadic or semi-nomadic existence, while other people in the Fertile Crescent (presumably represented by haplogroups E1b1b, G and T) settled down to cultivate the land or keep smaller domesticates. The analysis of bovine DNA has revealed that all the taurine cattle (Bos taurus) alive today descend from a population of only 80 aurochs.The earliest evidence of cattle domestication dates from circa 8,500 BCE in the Pre-Pottery Neolithic cultures in the Taurus Mountains. The two oldest archaeological sites showing signs of cattle domestication are the villages of Çayönü Tepesi in southeastern Turkey and Dja’de el-Mughara in northern Iraq, two sites only 250 km away from each others. This is presumably the area from which R1b lineages started expanding – or in other words the “original homeland” of R1b.The early R1b cattle herders would have split in at least three groups.One branch (M335) remained in Anatolia, but judging from its extreme rarity today wasn’t very successful, perhaps due to the heavy competition with other Neolithic populations in Anatolia, or to the scarcity of pastures in this mountainous environment. A second branch migrated south to the Levant, where it became the V88 branch. Some of them searched for new lands south in Africa, first in Egypt, then colonising most of northern Africa, from the Mediterranean coast to the Sahel. The third branch (P297), crossed the Caucasus into the vast Pontic-Caspian Steppe, which provided ideal grazing grounds for cattle.They split into two factions: R1b1a1 (M73), which went east along the Caspian Sea to Central Asia, and R1b1a2 (M269), which at first remained in the North Caucasus and the Pontic Steppe between the Dnieper and the Volga. It is not yet clear whether M73 actually migrated across the Caucasus and reached Central Asia via Kazakhstan, or if it went south through Iran and Turkmenistan. In the latter case, M73 might not be an Indo-European branch of R1b, just like V88 and M335.

R1b-M269 (the most common form in Europe) is closely associated with the diffusion of Indo-European languages, as attested by its presence in all regions of the world where Indo-European languages were spoken in ancient times, from the Atlantic coast of Europe to the Indian subcontinent, which comprised almost all Europe (except Finland, Sardinia and Bosnia-Herzegovina), Anatolia, Armenia, European Russia, southern Siberia, many pockets around Central Asia (notably in Xinjiang, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Afghanistan), without forgetting Iran, Pakistan, northern India and Nepal. The history of R1b and R1a are intricately connected to each others.

eupedia.com/R1b The first forays of steppe people into the Balkans happened between 4200 BCE and 3900 BCE, when cattle herders equipped with horse-drawn wagons crossed the Dniester and Danube and apparently destroyed the towns of the Gumelnita, Varna and Karanovo VI cultures in Eastern Romania and Bulgaria. A climatic change resulting in colder winters during this exact period probably pushed steppe herders to seek milder pastures for their stock, while failed crops would have led to famine and internal disturbance within the Danubian and Balkanic communities. The ensuing Cernavoda culture (Copper Age, 4000-3200 BCE), Coțofeni culture (Copper to Bronze Age, 3500-2500 BCE) and Ezero culture(Bronze Age, 3300-2700 BCE), in modern Romania, seems to have had a mixed population of steppe immigrants and people from the old tell settlements. These steppe immigrants were likely a mixture of both R1a and R1b lineages, with a probably higher percentage of R1a than later Yamna-era invasions.

<< 2800-2500BCE. Around the Black Sea, in the North of Turkey, in the East of the Balkans – the R1b highway. Old Europe is still resisting, R1b jumps over Cucuteni/Vinca culture to ‘Transylvania’, the starting platform from where Western Europe will be conquered. >>

<< 2500-2000 BCE. Most of Cucuteni Culture replaced by Cotsofeni R1b. Cernavoda and Ezero also mixed cultures – Old Europe mixed with R1b, same with Otomani and Glina, R1b military elite controls the area but they will be in the end melted into the Old I2(+J2+E1b1) mixture. R1b controls western part of Balkans, Bubanj-Hum Maliq Culture. Much of Old Europe is still resisting. Troy also R1b. >>

R1b migration – bronze age = R1b migrants melted into I2+E/J/G Enelolithic/Old Europe populations produce new cultures: Cernavoda in Dobrogea >> Gumelnita from Dobrogea to Olt river >> Salcuta between Olt river and Serbia >> Krivodol/Bubanj in Serbia >> Maliq in Albania; plus Ezero in Bulgaria and Cotofeni in Transilvania. These Bronze Age mixes are proto-Thracians, and proto-Illyrians from which the Iron Age populations resulted – Thracians, Dacians, Getae and Illyrians. < eliznik.org.uk/EastEurope/History

<< R1b coming from the Caucasus, N&S of Black Sea is ‘jumping’ over Old Europe to conquer Western Europe. R1a coming from the N is ‘jumping’ over Old Europe to conquer the the Balkans & ‘Greece’. Why the Hittites, such a strong empire, why they were not able to conquer the south shores of the Black Sea? Because that was R1b corridor, from Caucasus to Europe. Same Romania had a 7000 years continuity, Dacians had a ‘Latin language’ before the birth of Roman Empire and we preserved this ‘Latinity’ to present day!, BECAUSE we had the highest European population density in Neolithic. All migrations melted into this lower Danube area, the biggest European human reservoir, all migrating populations were absorbed by the I2 old Europeans, due to the best living conditions found in this area. First from the Lower Danube area, Europe was colonized with I2 populations, than through the Balkans arrived in Europe the J2/G farming populations and finally from the Lower Danube area, R1b made the celtic conquest of Western Europe, and from the north shores of the Black Sea R1a made the conquest of all East Europe. As Herodotus used to say, thracians were the biggest, most powerful population of the known world, compared only to the population of India. All over the world the biggest rivers produced the biggest populations and consequently the biggest cultures. Nile > Egypt, Indus/Ganges > India, Tigris/Euphrates > Mesopotamia, Lower Danube + Black Sea shores > ‘Arian’ Old Europe.

In the above maps we can see, according to Eupedia, between 2800-2500BCE, a first R1b migration to the East Balkans and East of Greece, along the shores of the Black Sea, of R1b, coming from Caucasus/Kura Axes Culture and from the South Yamma Open Steppe Culture, Late Yamma Culture = ‘Proto Greek’?. Then between 2000-1500BCE, a second R1a migration of ‘Greco Macedonians and Thracians’ to ‘Bulgaria’ and down to the South of ‘Greece’. >>

eupedia.com/europe/Haplogroup_R1a Greek branch > Little is known about the arrival of Proto-Greek speakers from the steppes. The Mycenaean culture commenced circa 1650 BCE and is clearly an imported steppe culture (R1a). The close relationship between Mycenaean and Proto-Indo-Iranian languages suggest that they split fairly late, some time between 2500 and 2000 BCE. Archeologically, Mycenaean chariots, spearheads, daggers and other bronze objects show striking similarities with the Seima-Turbino culture (c. 1900-1600 BCE) of the northern Russian forest-steppes – R1a, known for the great mobility of its nomadic warriors (Seima-Turbino sites were found as far away as Mongolia). It is therefore likely that the Mycenaean descended from Russia to Greece between 1900 and 1650 BCE, where they intermingled with the locals to create a new unique Greek culture.

Haplogroup R1a probably branched off from R1* during or soon after the Last Glacial Maxium. Little is know for certain about its place of origin. Some think it might have originated in the Balkans or around Pakistan and Northwest India, due to the greater genetic diversity found in these regions. The diversity can be explained by other factors though. The Balkans have been subject to 5000 years of migrations from the Eurasian Steppes, each bringing new varieties of R1a. The most likely place of origin of R1a is Central Asia or southern Russia/Siberia. From there, R1a could have migrated directly to eastern Europe (European Russia, Ukraine, Belarus), or first southward through Central Asia and Iran. In that latter scenario, R1a would have crossed the Caucasus during the Neolithic, alongside R1b, to colonise the Pontic-Caspian Steppe. A third possibility is that R1a tribes split in two around Kazakhstan during the Late Paleolithic, with one group moving to eastern Europe, while the other moved south to Iran.

The Proto-Indo-Europeans originated in the Yamna culture (3300-2500 BCE). Their dramatic expansion was possible thanks to an early adoption of bronze weapons and the domestication of the horse in the Eurasian steppes (circa 4000-3500 BCE). The southern Steppe culture is believed to have carried predominantly R1b (M269 and M73) lineages, while the northern forest-steppe culture would have been essentially R1a-dominant. The first expansion of the forest-steppe people occured with the Corded Ware Culture (see Germanic branch below). The migration of the R1b people to central and Western Europe left a vacuum for R1a people in the southern steppe around the time of the Catacomb culture (2800-2200 BCE). The forest-steppe origin of this culture is obvious from the introduction of corded pottery and the abundant use of polished battle axes, the two most prominent features of the Corded Ware culture. Ancient DNA testing has confirmed the presence of haplogroup R1a1a in samples from the Corded Ware culture in Germany (2600 BCE), from Tocharian mummies (2000 BCE) in Northwest China, from Kurgan burials (circa 1600 BCE) from the Andronovo culture in southern Russia and southern Siberia, as well as from a variety of Iron-age sites from Russia, Siberia, Mongolia and Central Asia. In the above picture is the present day distribution of R1a in Europe. High frequencies of R1a are found in Poland (57.5% of the population), Ukraine (40 to 65%), European Russia (45 to 65%), Belarus (51%), Slovakia (42%), Latvia (40%), Lithuania (38%), the Czech Republic (34%), Hungary (32%), Norway (27%), Austria (26%), Croatia (24%), north-east Germany (24%) Sweden (19%), and Romania (18%).

<< In the above picture we see R1a1a1 coming from the North of Black Sea / Yamma Culture to the lower Danube plains between 4200BCE to 2500BCE, when they started going up the Danube to ‘Germany’. >>

<< European Ethnogenesis – between 4200 and 2500bc BOTH R1B and R1a, arrived in the Lower Danube Area, in the Daco-Thracian area, mixing with the I2+E/J/G substratum. From here are all Western Europe plus Anatolia were conquered.>>

eupedia.com/New-migration-map-of-haplogroup-R1a1a > The chiefly Germanic L664 subclade is the only subclade of R1a that migrated alongside the bulk of the Indo-European R1b population, first invading the Balkans, then going up the Danube, then establishing the Unetice culture in Bohemia, eastern Germany and western Poland. After that it seems that R1a-L664 went along the R1b-U106 branch to found the Proto-Germanic culture in the Netherlands, North Germany and Scandinavia. It was redistributed around Western Europe (esp. British Isles) by the Germanic migrations during the Iron Age.

<< So Bulgaria had 2 R1a waves, first L664 subclade that later migrated up the Danube, over Serbia/Pannonia, to Germany, first wave coming alongside the bulk R1b population (4000bc>), than later the ‘Macedonian’ R1a wave (2000bc>). >>

thelatinlibrary: Aeolians, Dorians, Ionians > During the late 3rd millennium BC there began a series of invasions by tribes from the north who spoke an Indo-European language. Evidence exists that the northerners originally inhabited the basin of the Danube River in southeast Europe. The most prominent of the early invaders, who were to be called theAchaeans, had, in all probability, been forced to migrate by other invaders. They overran southern Greece and established themselves on the Peloponnesus, According to some scholars, a second tribe, the Ionians, settled chiefly in Attica, east-central Greece, and the Cyclades, where they were assimilated to a great degree with the Helladic people. The Aeolians, a third, rather vaguely defined tribe, originally settled in Thessaly. The Trojan War, described by Homer in the Iliad, began about, or shortly after, 1200 BC and was probably one of a series of wars waged during the 13th and 12th centuries BC. It may have been connected with the last and most important of the invasions from the north, which occurred at a similar time and brought the Iron Age to Greece. The Dorians left their mountainous home in Epirus and pushed their way down to the Peloponnesus and Crete, using iron weapons to conquer or expel the previous inhabitants of those regions. The invading Dorians overthrew the Achaean kings and settled, principally, in the southern and eastern part of the peninsula. Sparta and Corinth became the chief Dorian cities. Many of the Achaeans took refuge in northern Peloponnesus, a district afterward called Achaea. Others resisted the Dorians bitterly, and after being subjugated were made serfs and called helots. Refugees from the Peloponnesus fled to their kin in Attica and the island of Euboea, but they later migrated, as did the Aeolians, to the coast of Asia Minor.

Greek dialects after the event or events termed “the Dorian invasion.” Before this, the dialect spoken in the later Dorian range (except for Doris itself) is believed to have been Achaean, from which Attic, Ionic and Aeolic descended. Doric displaced Achaean in southern Greece.

en.wikipedia.org/Doris > Doris is a small mountainous district in ancient Greece, bounded by Aetolia, southern Thessaly, the Ozolian Locrians, and Phocis; the original homeland of the Dorian Greeks. It lies between Mounts Oeta and Parnassus, and consists of the valley of the river Pindus (Πίνδος), a tributary of the Cephissus, into which it flows not far from the sources of the latter. In the historical period the whole of the eastern and southern parts of Peloponnesus were in the possession of Dorians. From the Peloponnesus the Dorians spread over various parts of the Aegean and its connected seas. In the invasion of Xerxes, Doris submitted to the Persians, and consequently its towns were spared.

Blegen dated the Dorian invasion to 1200 BC. Meanwhile the archaeologists were encountering what appeared to be a wave of destruction of Mycenaean palaces. At approximately this time Hittite power in Anatolia collapsed with the destruction of their capital Hattusa, and the late 19th and the 20th dynasties of Egypt suffered invasions of the Sea Peoples. A theory, reported for instance by Thomas and Conant, attributes the ruin of the Peloponnesus to the Sea Peoples. It is possible that the Mycenaean world disintegrated through “feuding clans of the great royal families”. The possibility of some sort of internal struggle had long been under consideration. Chadwick, after following and critiquing the development of different views, in 1976 settled on a theory of his own:[31] there was no Dorian invasion. The palaces were destroyed by Dorians who had been in the Peloponnesus all along as a subservient lower class.

Mylonas joins two of the previous possibilities. He believes that some developments in Argolis and attempts for recovery after 1200 BC, can be explained by an internal fighting, and by an enemy pressure, by the Dorians. Even if the Dorians, were one of the causes of the Bronze age collapse, there is evidence that they brought with them some new elements of culture. According to the scholar H. Michell:[34] “If we assume that the Dorian invasion took place some time in the twelfth century, we certainly know nothing of them for the next hundred years.” Blegen admitted that in the sub-Mycenaean period following 1200:[26] “the whole area seems to have been sparsely populated or almost deserted.” The problem is that there are no traces of any Dorians anywhere until the start of the Geometric period about 950 BC. It is possible that the destruction of the Mycenaean centres, was caused by the wandering of northern people (Illyrian migration). They destroyed the palace of Iolcos (LH III C-1), the palace of Thebes ( late LH III B), then they crossed Isthmus of Corinth (end of LH III B) they destroyed Mycenae, Tiryns and Pylos, and finally they returned northward. However Pylos was destroyed by a sea-attack, the invaders didn’t leave behind traces of weapons or graves, and it cannot be proved that all the sites were destroyed about the same time.[35] It is also possible that the Doric clans moved southward gradually over a number of years, and they devastated the territory, until they managed to establish themselves in the Mycenaean centres.

<< The Bronze Dark Age have similarities with the Medieval Dark Age. Both finished slavery and centralism, bringing decentralized democracy. In both cases the migrants probably were the top of the aisberg, the ferment, they had effect through the collaboration with the enslaved populations. Empires, palaces, cities, were destroyed, rural societies followed. Both Dark Ages were followed by new levels of ‘technology’, Bronze Dark Age was followed by Iron Age, Medieval Dark Age was followed by modern society.>>

According to Eupedia the Dorians who destroyed the Ionian/Micenian R1a civilisation in much of Greece, plunging Greece in the 40 years Bronze Dark Age, so the Dorians were R1b! The Hallstatt Culture exppansion forced the 1200 migrations, Phyrgians from Thrace destroy the Hittite Empire, the Sea Man are raging all Mediterana down to Egypt.

eupedia.com/europe/Haplogroup_R1b_Y-DNA > There is substantial archaeological and linguistic evidence that Troy was an Indo-European city associated with the steppe culture and haplogroup R1b. The Trojans were Luwian speakers related to the Hittites (hence Indo-European), with attested cultural ties to the culture of the Pontic-Caspian steppe. The first city of Troy dates back to 3000 BCE, right in the middle of the Maykop period. Troy might have been founded by Maykop people as a colony securing the trade routes between the Black Sea and the Aegean. The founding of Troy happens to coincide exactly with the time the first galleys were made. Considering the early foundation of Troy, the most likely of the two Indo-European paternal haplogroups would be R1b-M269 or L23. Most of the R1b found in Greece today is of the Balkanic L23 variety. There is also a minority of Proto-Celtic S116/P312 and of Italic/Alpine Celtic S28/U152. L23 could have descended from Albania or Macedonia during the Dorian invasion (see below), thought to have happened in the 12th century BCE. Their language appear to have been close enough to Mycenaean Greek to be mutually intelligible and easy for locals to adopt. The Mycenaeans might have brought some R1b (M269 or L23) to Greece, but their origins can be traced back through archaeology to the Catacomb culture and the Seima-Turbino phenomenon of the northern forest-steppe, which would make them primarily an R1a1a tribe.

The most important event of the period following 1200bc was incontestably the destruction of the Near-Eastern civilizations, possibly by the Sea Peoples. The great catastrophe that ravaged the whole Eastern Mediterranean from Greece to Egypt circa 1200 BCE is a subject that remains controversial. The identity of the Sea Peoples has been the object of numerous speculations. What is certain is that all the palace-based societies in the Near-East were abruptly brought to an end by tremendous acts of destruction, pillage and razing of cities. The most common explanation is that the region was invaded by technologically advanced warriors from the north, probably Indo-Europeans descended from the steppes via the Balkans.
The Hittite capital Hattusa was destroyed in 1200 BCE, and by 1160 BCE the empire had collapsed, probably under the pressure of the Phrygians and the Armenians coming from the Balkans. The Mycenaean cities were ravaged and abandoned throughout the 12th century BCE, leading to the eventual collapse of Mycenaean civilization by 1100 BCE. The kingdom of Ugarit in Syria was annihilated and its capital never resettled. Other cities in the Levant, Cyprus and Crete were burned and left abandoned for many generations. The Egyptians had to repel assaults from the Philistinesfrom the East and the Libyans from the West – two tribes of supposed Indo-European origin. The Lybians were accompanied by mercenaries from northern lands (the Ekwesh, Teresh, Lukka, Sherden and Shekelesh), whose origin is uncertain, but has been placed in Anatolia, Greece and/or southern Italy.
The devastation of Greece followed the legendary Trojan War (1194-1187 BCE). It has been postulated that the Dorians, an Indo-European people from the Balkans (probably coming from modern Bulgaria or Macedonia), invaded a weakened Mycenaean Greece after the Trojan War, and finally settled in Greece as one of the three major ethnic groups. The Dorian regions of classical Greece, where Doric dialects were spoken, were essentially the southern and eastern Peloponnese, Crete and Rhodes, which is also the part of Greece with the highest percentage of R1b-L23.

The archaeology has shown that the Hallstatt culture and Urnfield cultures of central Europe spread into west Romania and pushed south down the Morava-Vardar valleys into Macedonia. The Glasinac (Illyrian) features moved south into Albania, Epirus and the Greek peninsular. In Romania the Noua culture of Moldavia and Sabatinovka culture continued throughout most of the region. “Traditional” history says that inabout 1300 BC the Illyrian and Venetic tribes started migrating south from Pannonia to Dalmatia. This caused the Doric tribes to move south and take the Mycenae lands of the Achaeans and in turn the Achaeans moved into the Aegean islands and Asia Minor.

The Pelasgians (pre-Minoan Greeks, or Helladic Greeks) belonged to an admixture of I2, E1b1b, T and G2a. E-V13 and T probably arrived in Greece from the Levant (and ultimately from Egypt, hence the small percentage of T) in the early Neolithic, 8,500 years ago.

According to ancient sources, the Thracians were a fusion of Proto-Indo-European Steppe people with the Neolithic inhabitants of the Carpathians (Cucuteni-Trypillian culture). As such they probably belonged to R1a (about 30%), R1b (10%), I2a1b (25-30%), E-V13 (10-15%), G2a, J1, J2a, J2b, and T1a.

Minoan Greeks migrated from Mesopotamia via Anatolia. They were mostly J2 people, but probably had some E1b1b too.

Mycenaean Greeks arrived around 3,600 years ago from the Pontic steppes via the Balkans. They were an Indo-European people belonging to R1b-L23 and/or R1a.

Greece was invaded by the Dorians around 1200 BCE. Nobody knows who they were or where they came from, but the high percentage of R1b in the regions where they settled (Peloponese, Crete) strongly suggest that they were R1b people. The events are linked to the Sea Peoples (see below), who were probably R1b people from the north-east of the Black Sea, or early Celts from central Europe. Greek historians sometimes mention that the Dorians were the descendants of the Trojans who came back to avenge their ancestors. The Trojans were an Indo-European people related to the R1b Hittites (see below).

Southern Anatolia was colonised early by Neolithic farmers and herders from the Fertile Crescent (E1b1b, G2a, J1, J2, T).

The Indo-European invasions brought the Hittites (1750 BCE), the Lydians and Lycians (1450 BCE), Phrygians (1200 BE) and the Proto-Armenians(1200 BCE). All were probably predominantly R1b-L23, considering its high percentage in the regions they settled.

The Cimmerians are probably the last wave of migration (around 700 BCE) from the Pontic Steppe. By that time the steppe would have been thoroughly overrun by R1a people, so that was probably the Cimmerians’s main haplogroup.